Since I Left Your World

{Inspired by the song "Since I Left Your World" by Rookie of the Year}

My stomach still clenches up every time I think of you. Usually I can get over it just by thinking of something else- of Sarah, of work, of the book I have been reading… but tonight it’s different. Tonight it won’t go away.

I move from my bed out to the couch and yearn for sleep, but it won’t come. My mind is spinning and I know it won’t end until I close the door on the part of my life you used to be in. I need to visit you one last time, then my mind can finally let go, and I can get some much needed sleep back.

I stand to get ready just as the darkness in the room starts to lift. There’s no light shining yet, but the darkness is less intense. After so many years of neglect and repression, I can feel my artistic side start to fire up as I ponder the upcoming sunrise. It makes me think that when I first met you, the sun wasn’t up quite yet, but the darkness around me was lifting. Now that you’re gone, the sun is beaming over the horizon.

We never seemed to discuss the night we met, but I see it as the second biggest turning point in my life.  As I step into the shower and close my eyes, I feel the water pour over me, and I remember the storm. I open my eyes, and suddenly I’m back to the night we first met, remembering how we ever came to be.  

The music is loud, but nothing compared to the crowd of people around me. I’m not the type of person to seek this kind of entertainment, but my soon to be roommate dragged me along thinking it would help us get to know each other. He leaves me to go find us some drinks and I quickly look around for a chair, a couch… anything to get me out of the crowd of strangers drunkenly running into me. That’s when I see you.

I had seen my fair share of pretty girls and done many group projects for them through school, but never had I seen someone who actually took my breath away. Your long, curly brown hair bounced against your cool white skin as you danced. You had such a mysterious foreign air about you; you looked like you could be from California, yet something in the way you swayed gave away your Latina heritage. Without warning, your big, brown eyes met mine, and my knees started to shake. At just the right moment, my roommate walked over and noticed the unspoken connection flying over the fifteen feet between us. He dragged me to you. You smiled; I nearly fainted.

“Dylan, this is Belen. Belen, Dylan.”

As soon as he spoke the words, my roommate disappeared. Maybe he was still standing there, but he was invisible to me. Your eyes bore deep into mine and I felt as if you were reading the darkest secrets of my soul. The silence was one begging to be broken, but my mind was blank. You spoke eventually, confirming my suspicion of your heritage with your accent, but what you said was completely unexpected.

“If you could do anything in the world right now, Deelan, what would you do?”

That’s the kind of question that’s hard to answer under any circumstance, but I found myself answering without giving it much thought.

“I would drive far away from here to somewhere I can see the stars… and fall asleep staring up at the infinite sky.”

You smiled, grabbed my hand, and pulled me through the crowd and into your car. We talked all three hours we were driving into the middle of nowhere. Upon arrival, you parked just off the side of the road and scrambled onto the tiny roof above me. I waited just a moment, and then crawled up next to you to look up to the sky. I started pointing out my favorite constellations as you oohed and awwed… at least until the storm rolled in. We didn’t notice until the moon was blocked from our view and could only exchange a startled glance before what felt like the entirely of an Olympic swimming pool dropped down all at once. We scrambled off the roof and into the car, slamming the doors, but we were already soaking wet. We laughed until you tried to start your car and it wouldn’t turn over. I had my phone, but no reception. After exhausting all of our limited options of escape, we just laughed again until we cried and resigned to spend the night together in the back of your car… something we were both wishing for all along.

The water from the shower turned ice cold, awaking me from my trance, realizing I had neither lathered nor rinsed, but turning off the tap anyway. With a sigh, I grab my towel and walk through the freezing hallway to my bedroom, quickly searching for a sweater to block out the bitter winter leaking in through the windows. Light is peaking through the shades of my window now. I walk over and glance outside, seeing my familiar street below, somewhat less busy than usual thanks to the fresh blanket of snow that came overnight. The start of winter is always interesting- it can snow all night, but the sun still breaks through the clouds to greet you the next morning and remind you nothing is permanent. Not the sun, not the snow… nothing stays around forever.

I put on the clothes I picked out, then sit on the edge of my bed to pull my wooly socks over my scarred and calloused feet. Most people working an office job have depressingly plain feet. There was a time when I did too, but you helped me change that. Every adventure we had seemed to end for me in some kind of pain or injury… that hike when I stepped on a rusty nail that found its way through my shoe and into my toe, the night we played laser tag and I left with a broken ankle, the day you convinced me to hop on the back of your motorcycle in sandals and we crashed, trailing road rash across the tops of both my feet. Of course, that wasn’t the only crash you had.

As I walked into the kitchen for breakfast, it was as if I saw us there trying out another one of the recipes you liked to poison me with.

“But the recipe, it calls for oil, Deelan!”

“I don’t think that much oil is healthy. All I’m saying is that we could try a substitute.”

“But then it wouldn’t be guiso, would it? Go pick up some vino, I will finish it on my own.”

Every conversation we had seemed to be an argument. Maybe that’s why we never really talked. As I poured a bowl of cereal, I thought of my relationship with Sarah- we always talked. I told her everything, and we only fought once. I love Sarah because of that. But then, why did I feel like I loved you?

I guess I didn’t really know what love was then. I just knew I liked the way I felt when I was around you. We did so much together… surely we must have cared about each other too! I lose my appetite and put my spoon back in the bowl as I remember things I had fought to suppress- the number of times I caught you with someone else. I followed along like a lost puppy even as you left me at clubs to dance with other men or left me stranded as you drove away with another group. I should have noticed then that you didn’t take our relationship as seriously as I did. But I didn’t even let myself think like that until after you were gone. Somehow, every time you ignored me, it wanted me to be even closer to you. Every other guy you kissed made me want to kiss you harder to make you stick around. You always came back around to me in the end, but I would dread the time we were alone together because I knew it wouldn’t last.

I should have walked away back then. I should have turned from you and found Sarah much sooner than I did. Our relationship was like a drug to me; it took me higher than I had ever been, but I could also feel it slowly killing me. So why did I go buy you a ring when I should have been buying myself a ticket away?

I’m on the street now, walking quickly to catch the bus. It only comes around every fifteen minutes, and fifteen minutes on the street this time of year might as well be a death sentence to me. Every store and restaurant I walk by flashes another memory of you before my eyes. You wanted to see everything, live everything, and know everything… so we did everything. I wish there were things I could do with Sarah that didn’t make me think of you. But that’s why I’m walking so fast this early in the morning to see you. Once I close that door, the slate can be wiped clean in my mind.

At least, that’s what I hope.

The bus pulls up just as turn the corner, so I jog to the stop to make sure the driver doesn’t pull away too fast. I step on and sit down, smiling at memories of us dragging luggage on other busses like this one on one of your whims.

“Dee, let’s go to Boston! Let’s go see Chicago! We can go to Florida and come back before your meeting tomorrow if we hurry!” I was always game, and I almost always regretted neglecting my responsibilities when I lost my job or saw my bank statement. You told me your family was one of the richest in northern Argentina, but somehow I was always the only one around when the bill came.

 

I pulled the cord and the bus stopped, so I hopped down and ran across the street before the light turned green. I was almost completely alone at the edge of your neighborhood, which shouldn’t have surprised me. Not many people come here so early in the morning.

I slowly walk toward the spot where I know you are and think back to the last time I saw you. I had the ring box in my pocket and I was begging you to stay- I had spent weeks building up the courage to ask you that all important question, but you had other plans.

“I’ll meet you for dinner somewhere if you want, but I have to go now. Zoe is waiting for me. Chao!” She kissed my cheek and turned to leave.

“Please, Belen, just don’t go.”

“I’m not going… I’ll be back soon.”

But you weren’t back soon. You were gone. Within an hour, I got a call from Saint Agnes Hospital.

I warned you about your motorcycle. After our crash, I begged you to sell it.

“Are you Dylan Hunt?”

My knees shake as I try not to remember that night, but the floodgates have opened and there’s no stopping it now.

“I’m calling from Saint Agnes. You were the emergency contact of Miss Maria Belen Ramos.”

Before I even heard what happened, I dropped the phone and ran to the hospital. It’s more than thirty blocks from my apartment, but I couldn’t stand still long enough to wait for the bus, so I ran. I remember everything that happened so clearly. I shouted at the nurses to let me see you, but as soon as I was in your room I collapsed. I cried. I held your hand until visiting hours ended, trying to find something familiar in your face. I bought you a helmet… I guess you didn’t use it. When the nurses and a security guard finally pulled me from your side, I sat in the waiting room. I stared at the small box in my hand and the ring inside, confused about its meaning anymore. A rock means nothing when you’re breathing through a machine.

I kneel now at your grave, staring down at your name as I stared at that ring so long ago. You said you wouldn’t go, but you’re gone. It’s been a year or so now since I left your world… or I guess, since you left mine. I used to cry, but now I can’t. I met Sarah a few months ago, and since then, I haven’t been able to cry for you. I pull the box out of my pocket and set it by your grave, but it’s no longer meant for you. I’m going to give it to Sarah tonight. I’m ready to start a new chapter in my life. I finally realized what love means, and I know the closest I came to loving you was the night you lay dying in a sanitized room hooked to too many tubes to keep track of. The only time I couldn’t expect you to try and love me back.

“Goodbye, Belen.” I whisper to your lifeless, broken body lying six feet below. I walk away, clutching the ring box in my pocket, and finally feeling at peace.